


stay for the storm (if you can take it)

by mdizzee



Series: stills from the island [5]
Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: 1x09, Character Study, F/F, First Time, Idiots in Love, Religious Guilt, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, i love these two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:27:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29252940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mdizzee/pseuds/mdizzee
Summary: There is a desperation, a fervour, in this kiss. It’s loaded. Toni can feel it in the way Shelby’s hands shake as she brings them to Toni’s face, gripping her with such intensity that she’s worried she might collapse under the rawness of it all.In which Toni and Shelby are inevitable.
Relationships: Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
Series: stills from the island [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2064456
Comments: 9
Kudos: 149





	stay for the storm (if you can take it)

6 days, no rescue, no food. 

Toni is too exhausted for anger.

She’s actually weirdly content to watch the swing of Shelby’s ponytail as she stalks through the undergrowth with her comically large sharpened stick. It feels familiar now. Comforting, even if Shelby’s starting to look a little Lord of the Flies. Toni wouldn’t be surprised if Shelby started smearing mud warpaint on her face and threatening to dispatch Rachel, next. The hunger gnaws, aches, but all she has to do is keep moving, keep watching Shelby’s ponytail. One foot in front of the other. Back and forth. Over a boulder, across a stream. 

They stop for a pee break and Shelby sings a Macklemore song to save Toni the embarrassment of pissing in silence, carefully replacing the swear with ‘fricking’. 

Toni thinks back to someone else who used to sing, randomly, unnecessarily, tapping out the beat on a worn old steering wheel. 

‘No, no, I like it’, she tells Shelby when she comes over all bashful and insecure about her song choice.

Shelby thinks back to Andrew, who was just so indifferent to every part of her that he couldn’t fuck or show off to his bonehead friends. It all feels slightly unreal. Another time, another life.

Toni holds a branch out of Shelby’s way, letting her move past her, and they realise at the same time that they’re unconsciously moving closer as they walk; it shocks them both. Toni smiles and says her name softly and Shelby can’t suppress the way her skin prickles pleasantly, the ache for closer proximity. She also can’t suppress the wave of guilt that follows. Whatever is between them is tenuous, delicate, complicated.

(And yet, she thinks, she wouldn’t want to be dying a slow death by starvation with anyone else. It’s as simple as that)

She can’t help this chemistry between them, despite her best efforts to dampen it. She wishes she had her Bible, but she knows that even if it had, somehow, survived the crash, it wouldn’t have escaped Dot’s meticulous inventory taking. No, it would’ve been long lost as kindling to that insatiable campfire by now. More’s the pity. She wonders whether the worn pages would have something specifically for the way she feels whenever she catches Toni smiling at her.

They hack through a particularly dense bit of bracken and stumble into a clearing, blinking in the sunlight, and Shelby wonders if those countless Hail Marys were worth it because this  _ has _ to be a gift from God. The lychees hang so plentiful and heavy on the tree that the branches bow, dipping towards them invitingly; Shelby wonders if she’s finally lost her mind and she’s hallucinating Eden, an elaborate thematic fever dream.

Toni is surprised by how badly she wants to share this moment with Shelby, how glad she is that they’re together when they find salvation from their hunger. It is a perfect moment; they’re stuffing their faces with lychee, with sweet, sweet  _ calories  _ and they can’t stop looking at each other, can’t stop  _ smiling _ at each other through mouthfuls and they laugh because they’ve got tears in their eyes and they’re crying because the lychees taste so fucking good.

‘You’ve got, um, something on your cheek.’

There is a desperation, a fervour, in this kiss. It’s loaded. Toni can feel it in the way Shelby’s hands shake as she brings them to Toni’s face, gripping her with such intensity that she’s worried she might collapse under the rawness of it all. She exhales, draws Shelby close, deepening the kiss, relishing the way Shelby kisses back, messy and emotional. She’s unrelenting, ferocious, in the way she presses into Toni, and Toni marvels at the way her body wakes up from its haze of starvation; the electric thrum of being alive, not just surviving, not just existing, not just drifting alone through the wasteland, but being truly, acutely,  _ alive _ . 

(Shelby thinks of the last time she let a kiss mean this much. Her heart wrenches painfully)

It is inevitable, of course.  _ They _ are inevitable. A part of her probably already knew it, ever since the moment they’d crashed onto this stupid island. Like all the pain, the guilt, the tragedy, had been leading up to this; a forbidden fruit, a lychee tree; Toni underneath her, a smear of dirt across her brow. At some point, they’d ended up on the ground, Shelby straddling Toni’s hips. She’s fearlessly laid herself bare for audiences of thousands, but right now, she is deathly afraid. 

‘I…’

Shelby’s pulled back a little. She’s looking at Toni through clouded green eyes, nervously licking lips red and pouty from kissing.

‘I...I don’t want to be on top’ she says shyly, flushing red. Her voice is low and raspy, the Southern drawl heavier. Toni nearly combusts.

‘Ok. Um, ok’ she manages a reply. It occurs to her that this is not just Shelby’s first time with a girl, but also Shelby’s first time, full stop, and with the way Shelby’s anxiously chewing her bottom lip, it’s abundantly clear she’s dealing with some sort of internal struggle. She wants to make this as easy for her as possible because, well, Toni hates it when people overcomplicate things.

‘Come here, then’

She gently moves out from under Shelby so she’s sitting upright, leaning comfortably against the base of the lychee tree. Shelby moves towards her, all wide eyes and trembling hands.

Shelby’s breath catches as Toni grips her hips and turns her around, pulling her into her lap. The glade is speckled with sunspots of the late afternoon sun; insects chitter and the air is still, heavy, charged.

She swallows, hard. 

‘Hey. It's okay.’ 

Toni whispers it between kisses to the side of Shelby’s neck and she shudders as calloused fingertips leave trails of goosebumps, stroking higher and higher on her ribcage, every nerve crackling as Toni kisses up the column of her neck.

‘Can I take this off?’

Shelby’s been turned on before, but nothing, she thinks, can compare to how she feels right now; heat pools in her stomach and her heart thumps against her chest and her senses are inhumanly tuned in. She says nothing, fearing she’ll be too breathless to form words, just raises her arms to tangle in Toni’s hair behind her and Toni gets the message, always understands her, so she drags Shelby’s sports bra up, pulling it over her head and dropping it unceremoniously somewhere beside them. 

Her gut twists; a sudden flash of memory, of Becca. But the moment passes, the twang of pain overridden as she turns her head, kisses Toni greedily. She’s had enough of denying herself what she wants.

‘Can I...can you-’

She’s cut off, shuddering as Toni covers Shelby’s breasts with her hands, squeezing gently, thumbs rubbing deliciously over her nipples. 

‘You can have,’ Toni pauses to gently bite down on Shelby’s earlobe, eliciting a sharp intake of breath, ‘Whatever you want.’

It feels like a revelation. Toni’s hands skim her stomach, grip her hips, flick over her nipples. Shelby’s life is her own. 

‘Ok,’ She’s tired of being cowardly. ‘Fuck me, then’.

///

She’s completely at Toni’s mercy now, putty in her hands, but Shelby feels the most empowered she’s ever felt in her entire life. She imagines how she must look, so flushed and vulnerable, brow furrowed and eyes squeezed shut as she writhes on Toni’s lap, jean shorts pushed down around her ankles, Toni pressing kisses into her neck, both hands occupied; one between Shelby’s legs, one trailing down her ribs. She’s stifling her moans, catching them behind her teeth, leashing them into whimpers; it’s a force of habit. 

‘Shelby.’

Toni says her name and it sounds like something holy, like something she could never ever tire of hearing. The familiar intonation, made into something foreign, something exciting, from Toni’s lips. Shelby wonders if she’s found her new religion.

‘Yeah?’ She breathes out.

‘You don’t have to be quiet.’ Toni punctuates by pressing a finger into her and Shelby loses all pretense, all shame, and she’s moaning openly and it stops feeling alien and embarrassing because she’s not sure anything exists outside this moment. Toni speeds up and Shelby loses track of what’s really going on, just lets her eyes close and the sensations take over; the white hot coiling in her gut, the shivers that rattle through her. And it’s too much, the sensation almost overwhelming, and Shelby’s worried her heart might literally just stop because every single nerve in her body seems to be alight as Toni works some sort of fucking black magic on her and it’s almost, almost too much and-

‘Toni,’ She says, stutters over huffs of air, because Toni won’t let up, won’t let her catch her fucking breath. Not that she’s complaining. ‘I-I, uh-’

‘Lean back,’ Toni says, ‘I’ve got you’

Shelby arches into her, throws her head back against Toni’s shoulder as she fucks into her, and Toni wraps her hand around Shelby’s jaw, fingers splayed across the underside, thumb brushing over her lips and her mind goes completely blank and it’s so, so good and the tightness in her gut becomes unbearable and she’s shuddering, trembling, around Toni’s fingers as she comes, hard and fast. Probably embarrassingly fast, actually. Whatever. Shelby’s surprised to find that she doesn’t care; no, she just lets the waves wash over her, revels in it, tangles her hands in Toni’s hair and gasps into her mouth, because trying to articulate her gratitude in any other way feels like an impossible task.

Toni slowly pulls her hands away, relishing the sharp intake of breath it elicits from Shelby. She turns her head and they just look at each other, lips brushing over each other. Her eyes are glazed over like hell, burning black holes rimmed with a thin ring of green. Shelby catches her breath and Toni’s surprised when she turns over, starts touching Toni’s sides, stomach, the hem of her leggings. Toni grins at her and Shelby blushes, bashfully avoiding eye contact.

‘I…don’t really know what I’m doing.’

‘I’ll talk you through it.’

Shelby is nothing if not a people pleaser.

///

The sun dips lower, it’s twilight when they eventually still, exhausted, wrapped around each other. Toni is the most relaxed she’s felt in weeks; months, even. She idly wonders that they should be getting back to the others, but she brushes off the idea; what’s a few more hours to almost a week of hunger? And to be honest, she doesn’t want to ruin the moment. She’s too comfortable to move from the glade; she doesn’t want to pry herself away from Shelby, who’s knocked out next to her, face ironed out from sleep. She wonders where they’ll go from here; the fog of hunger has lifted and it's been replaced by something else, something equally dizzying, something equally consuming. Shelby shifts slightly, exhales, and Toni gets this crazy wave of fondness for her, filling her chest and making her smile. It’s a mild night, amazingly, and Toni sits up, hugging her knees. She looks through a gap in the trees to the distant horizon, where the starry night sky fades into the vast inky blackness of the sea. For once, she’s excited for the future.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
